Adobe to use 'software integrity service' to convince pirates to pay for their software

Despite recent efforts to the contrary, piracy is still a big problem for Adobe as programs like Illustrator and Photoshop remain incredibly popular among pirates. Ever vigilant, Adobe is embarking on a new campaign tasked with informing pirates of the dangers associated with using non-genuine software.

As Torrent Freak reports, Adobe is bundling its products with a software integrity service designed to scan for and detect pirated and counterfeit software. When a pirated product is identified, users will receive a warning in the form of a pop-up like the one seen below.

Adobe said its tests check for software tampering and invalid licenses. As of now, the validation is limited to Acrobat X users in the US although I suspect its reach will likely be expanded in the near future. The pop-up can be clicked away but it may reappear a short while later.

The company said it has been working on this service for a while (as a pilot), taking its time to ensure it is delivered to customers in an easy-to-understand and actionable way. Adobe insists that those identified as pirates won’t be getting into any sort of trouble as again, they simply want to inform users of the risks associated with pirated software.

Aside from the fact that Adobe would love to make additional revenue, its concerns about the risk of running pirated software aren’t without merit. It’s easy for hackers to take a program like Photoshop, inject it with malware or other types of nefarious code then repackage and present it as an otherwise normal looking program.

Well 1) I don't want to have to rent the software for the rest of my life

2)it's too damned expensive anyway.

I'm still using my CS3 suite, but it gives me trouble when working with newer RAW files, which is BS.

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Exactly. Where does it leave casual Photoshop users?
You can't justify paying monthly for something you will hardly ever use and you certainly can't afford to stump up the hefty up front fee to buy it outright.

Adobe has had something like this since CS4. They have an annoying process always running in the background to make sure your copy is legit, all the time, and the program won't work without it. Only difference now is that they are notifying you that you have a pirated copy. If adobe really wanted to fix it's piracy "problem" it would create different editions for different uses. Not everyone wants to rent and not everyone wants to pay the insane price of the full software that professionals pay.

I don't see what the big deal is here in the comments about the subscription. You can buy Photoshop elements for a single time price of $80, or you can purchase a subscription for Photoshop and Lightroom which costs $10/month. $120/year for photoshop CC and Lightroom CC would take a couple years before equating to the perpetual cost of a Photoshop license, and by the time that comes, you'll likely need to upgrade anyway if you had a perpetual license. If you want access to all of their apps, then you pay $50 month. Seems pretty fair to me, especially if you compare this to software costs in other industries.

I found an open source PDF reader/editor. Does what I need it to do, not worth paying Adobe
for what I use it for.

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A little bit silly here but this article is about Adobe's creative suite of programs. Adobe's PDF reader, Acrobat, is and has always been free. Of course, there are many excellent alternatives out there.

I don't see what the big deal is here in the comments about the subscription. You can buy Photoshop elements for a single time price of $80, or you can purchase a subscription for Photoshop and Lightroom which costs $10/month. $120/year for photoshop CC and Lightroom CC would take a couple years before equating to the perpetual cost of a Photoshop license, and by the time that comes, you'll likely need to upgrade anyway if you had a perpetual license. If you want access to all of their apps, then you pay $50 month. Seems pretty fair to me, especially if you compare this to software costs in other industries.

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Photoshop elements is for photo editing and it's essentially the basic version of photoshop. The problem here is that it's not good for drawing, graphic design, publishing, typography, ect.

Compared to software in other professional industries? Auto-CAD can be had for $240. Even one part of adobe's suite costs more than that and I can tell you there is much more going on in an Auto-CAD suite than just one part of the Adobe puzzle.

Other than elements, Adobe has no personal / semi-pro license for it's software. The subscription is a terrible idea and will end up costing you more in the long run (unless you think you are going to relearn everything for another software suite).

I don't see what the big deal is here in the comments about the subscription. You can buy Photoshop elements for a single time price of $80, or you can purchase a subscription for Photoshop and Lightroom which costs $10/month. $120/year for photoshop CC and Lightroom CC would take a couple years before equating to the perpetual cost of a Photoshop license, and by the time that comes, you'll likely need to upgrade anyway if you had a perpetual license. If you want access to all of their apps, then you pay $50 month. Seems pretty fair to me, especially if you compare this to software costs in other industries.

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Well I bought cs1, cs2 and the cs3 suite,onit to be betrayed by a subscription model after investing 10's of thousands of hours mastering their software. Now I have to rent their software if I want to use it with my cameras RAW files? **** that.

They've already gotten thousands of dollars out of me now they're asking for more. I can hack support for newer RAW files into CS3, but then that makes it appears as illegitimate if I try to keep it legal.

"Ever vigilant, Adobe is embarking on a new campaign tasked with informing pirates of the dangers associated with using non-genuine software." Absolutely hilarious. The only real "danger" associated with using non-genuine software is Adobe not making any money. I love seeing companies do crap like this, where they pretend to CARE about their (potential) customers. Meanwhile they care only about their bottom dollar, nothing more.

Photoshop elements is for photo editing and it's essentially the basic version of photoshop. The problem here is that it's not good for drawing, graphic design, publishing, typography, ect.

Compared to software in other professional industries? Auto-CAD can be had for $240. Even one part of adobe's suite costs more than that and I can tell you there is much more going on in an Auto-CAD suite than just one part of the Adobe puzzle.

Other than elements, Adobe has no personal / semi-pro license for it's software. The subscription is a terrible idea and will end up costing you more in the long run (unless you think you are going to relearn everything for another software suite).

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Yeah Photoshop Elements is definitely a basic version haha, however most people don't need much more than that, hence why it's a perpetual license and doesn't cost much. I think though asking $10 a month for the full version of Photoshop is pretty good.

I used to work in an Engineering company, and I can definitely tell you that AutoCAD does not cost $240 perpetual (maybe old versions do though?). I just did a quick lookup, and AutoCAD currently costs $210/month for a subscription, and although Autodesk is phasing out perpetual licenses, I found that a license for AutoCAD used to cost about $4200, plus maintenance subscriptions each year for upgrades and such, which are usually between 500 and 800 dollars. Corporate licenses per person for the autodesk infrastructure suite would go for roughly $7200 - 8000 I think, plus about an $800 maintenance subscription.

They want to be the industry standard but they put high prices, they want to innovate, but the software is still buggy, like all competitors they like to create an ecosystem where customers cannot escape. "They will enforce software integrity"... meh, just another thing that will eventually get hacked.

Dear Adobe, do stuff like The Foundry, hire someone that collects data from users and then sends emails asking for thousand of dollars. That is the correct way of stopping piracy. Oh, this also kills your social status, but if you are a big company and the industry standard you can afford it. After all, the suite is already spying us.

"Ever vigilant, Adobe is embarking on a new campaign tasked with informing pirates of the dangers associated with using non-genuine software." Absolutely hilarious. The only real "danger" associated with using non-genuine software is Adobe not making any money. I love seeing companies do crap like this, where they pretend to CARE about their (potential) customers. Meanwhile they care only about their bottom dollar, nothing more.

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I find it funny that they think this will actually stop piracy, pirates are awesome at getting around things like this. This will end up being another process that will run in the background for legit users and annoy them while not affecting pirates. I mean they added it to Acrobat X as a test meaning the hackers have had time to figure it out and get around it so the versions of Premiere, Photoshop and Illustrator will be ready to go the day they show up.

"Ever vigilant, Adobe is embarking on a new campaign tasked with informing pirates of the dangers associated with using non-genuine software." Absolutely hilarious. The only real "danger" associated with using non-genuine software is Adobe not making any money. I love seeing companies do crap like this, where they pretend to CARE about their (potential) customers. Meanwhile they care only about their bottom dollar, nothing more.

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I find it funny that they think this will actually stop piracy, pirates are awesome at getting around things like this. This will end up being another process that will run in the background for legit users and annoy them while not affecting pirates. I mean they added it to Acrobat X as a test meaning the hackers have had time to figure it out and get around it so the versions of Premiere, Photoshop and Illustrator will be ready to go the day they show up.

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I doubt their goal is 100% eradication of piracy. It's probably something more realistic like convincing 5 to 10% of pirates to do the $10/mo thing. Any increase in profit is better than none.

I don't know about right now, but I bought Adobe Acrobat Pro years and years ago for the student price which was a real bargain. I wait now for a few newer editions to pass then upgrade for about $200 CAD. Full retail price is $600-650 CAD, Getting me as a student has sure worked. I wouldn't even consider the full price then or now. Student pricing definitely works!